Game as Ned Kelly
by Technomad
Summary: AU for the third book The Third Day, the Frost/The Killing Frost What if the NZAF hadn't bombed the prison just when and where they did?


Game as Ned Kelly

a Tomorrow Series fan fiction

by Technomad

(Author's note: What if the NZAF hadn't dropped their bombs just where and when they did in _The Third Day, the Frost/A Killing Frost_?)

Ellie Linton

It's like no other experience in the world.

Being told that you've been sentenced to death is…unique, I suppose I'd have to say. I'm sure that my teachers, if they were here, would have better words. So what? I'm a station girl, not a prize scholar, and I'll use what words I please.

After all, what could anybody do to me for that? Shoot me?

Homer Yannos got the same sentence, while the others got prison terms. While I'm sure that being told that you're going to spend the next twenty-five or thirty years in a prison isn't pleasant, it can't compare with being told that you're to die in a few days.

I'd almost have rather that they carried out sentence then and there. The anticipation was much worse than any actual execution could dream of being. Having to see my friends, my comrades, when we had our exercise periods was bad enough, but having them trying to comfort me (and Homer, although the big tosser pretended he didn't care) without even being allowed to touch each other was much worse. If it'd been given to me to live a hundred years, I'd never forget the anguish in their eyes.

At night, lying in my dark, dark cell, a hundred-and-one wild schemes and daydreams spun through my mind. The RNZAF bombing the prison, and all of us escaping in the chaos (some hope! As if Kiwis were ever any good at anything but molesting sheep!) was a favourite, as was the Australian Army counterattacking and liberating the prison. But none of them ever came to be.

When I wasn't fantasizing about rescue, or coming up with impossible escape plans, I'd sometimes rage against the unfairness of fate. _I was much too young to die!_ I'd scream internally. Or I'd curse the ill-luck that had me and my friends down in Hell when the invasion hit; if we'd been with our parents and the rest of the people at the Showgrounds, we'd have been scooped on in. Right then, the Showgrounds, as unappealing as they were, looked infinitely better than where I'd ended up.

Of course, cursing the invaders and their leaders and their whole nation was always another perennial. I'd never been much of a one for hate before the war, but I'd learnt very quickly. If I could, I'd have doused the lot of them in petrol and set them on fire.

At one point, the RNZAF did do a bombing raid, and we could feel the bombs rocking the prison. Unfortunately, Stratton Prison had been built very solidly, and the bombs didn't do nearly enough damage to allow an escape attempt. If they had, we'd have gone for it; after all, what did any of us have to lose, even the ones who'd escaped a death sentence? We were rurals; life cooped up in these unyielding walls would be a slow death for all of us. We needed open sky, free breezes, the bush around us. And my friends' sentences were for even longer than they'd been alive! Even if some or all of my friends survived, they'd never be the same. What would Robyn be like after decades behind bars? A worn-out old woman, old even before her time. And the boys would be even worse.

After a while, the raging and the wild fantasies died down, and I found myself drifting into a state of calm acceptance. After all, I was a station girl. Death was by no means unfamiliar, and I'd known people my age or even younger who'd died. They'd died by accidents, though…a farm is by no means the safest place to work in the world. And it had always been very sudden. No days of dreadful anticipation.

Finally, I took myself in hand. I was Australian! Australians had always known how to die well, and even though I was a girl not old enough to vote, I had a tradition to live up to. My Dad always said "Game as Ned Kelly" about anybody who did something particularly brave, particularly if it were at risk of life and limb.

I'd always been privately sceptical about Ned Kelly; I'd read enough to know that there were questions about the "injustices" that forced him into the bush-ranger life. Still and all, he'd had plenty of courage, both in his final fight and at his execution. It'd be a poor show if I, who was and am no bush-ranger (no matter what the invaders say! I never committed a crime for profit in my entire life, and would have never done the things I did if not for the invasion) couldn't show better than a thief and murderer. Even a romantic thief and murderer in a neat suit of home-made armour.

At least they gave me paper and a decent pen. I'm writing this now, and am going to stuff it into one of the cracks in the wall that the NZAF left. With any luck, the next prisoner in here will be Australian, too, and maybe some day this will get out, when we've won the war.

I'd want my mum and dad to know that their little girl wasn't a coward.

Fiona Maxwell

I'll never forget that day 'til the day I die myself. They lined us up on one side of the courtyard, and I noticed that they had two wooden stakes set up against the wall on another side. There were a lot of enemy soldiers about. Then I saw Major Harvey.

Oh, that self-important, strutting, pompous, incompetent Judas! To think that I'd once thought he was a real leader! For all his brave words when he was in command of "Harvey's Heroes," he was now sucking up to the invaders, acting like a dog that's looking for a reward. That…_that_…I don't know words _bad enough_ to describe him! The boys, and even Robyn, were calling him every filthy name in the book, and some I'd never even heard before, but nothing seemed adequate. At that moment, I made myself a vow: To live, do whatever I had to do to survive, until the war was over and I was liberated.

And then to track down False-Major Harvey and make him die, very slowly. Traitors do not deserve a quick death.

A gate opened, and they marched Ellie in. I smiled, although my heart was breaking inside me and my cheeks were soaked with tears. She looked pale under the tan we'd all acquired in those weeks out in the bush, but her head was high and her expression was fixed in a faint smile.

"G'day, Ellie," I said. It wasn't that loud, but sounded loud in the sudden quiet that had fallen.

"G'day yourself, Fiona, Robyn, boys," she answered, her voice as steady as though it was a normal school day with nothing worse ahead than a test.

Right about then, Lee lost it badly; he tried to fight his way to her side, to save her, to offer to take her place…I don't know what was on his mind. One of the soldiers that was guarding us slugged him in the gut with the butt of his rifle, and he doubled over, retching and weeping. The rest of us grabbed him and held on to him.

I looked around. No sign of Homer! Where was he? Had he somehow managed to escape? Then "Major" Harvey cleared his throat.

"It appears that Mr. Yannos thought that he could escape. Unfortunately, his attempt to overpower his guards failed, and ended with his death." I felt like cheering. Good on you, Homer! I knew that he was clever enough to know that he'd had no chance of escaping; he'd almost certainly done this to choose his own time and place of death, rather than have that power taken away.

They marched Ellie to the wall. The soldiers that were guiding her along were pretty clearly conscripts, not much older than we were. One of them looked like she'd rather be anywhere else, doing anything else; the other had tears in her eyes and was clenching her lips tightly together, like she was afraid she'd sick up in front of everybody. Our oppressors were human beings, too, and when I scanned the ranks of them who'd been brought in to witness this horrible ritual, I could see that this whole business bothered them. And so it should have! They tied her to the stake, facing out, not too tightly, then turned and left.

False-Major Harvey was reading out this long laundry-list of charges: murder, arson, terrorism, and I don't know what all else. When he'd finished, from beside me, I heard one of the boys mutter, as though that was part of the list of charges: "…and one moving violation!" I nearly giggled, even though I was trying hard not to cry. That had to be Lee! Trust him to remember that crazy American animated movie at a time like this!

The officer in charge of the firing squad barked an order, and the twelve soldiers charged their weapons in unison, raising them into firing position. They hadn't blindfolded poor Ellie, and she watched them with an expression on her face like watching chooks do something silly. Then, in the sudden silence, she turned toward us, gave us a wink, and said, clear as day: "Such is life!"

At the officer's command, the soldiers fired, all at once. The noise was shockingly loud, and Ellie's chest seemed to explode. She went completely limp, held up by the bonds tying her to the stake, and all of us exploded. We screamed out our impotent hatred and rage:

"Murderers!"

"_Fascist_ murderers!"

"Monsters!"

"Killers!"

"_Nazis_!"

I was sobbing so hard I could hardly speak, and Robyn was calling the invaders things I hadn't known she even knew about. The boys were crying and swearing, and for once, I don't think that any of them would have called crying "girly." Matter of fact, if someone had had the nerve to make fun of them I think that the boys would have torn that person limb-from-limb.

Major Judas Harvey was barbering on about how this should teach all us dirty little terrorists a damn good lesson, but none of us were paying him any mind. We watched as two soldiers came in carrying a coffin. They untied Ellie's poor body and lay it out, arranging her respectfully with her hands crossed over the ruins of her chest, and covered her decently with a sheet before taking her out. I could see that they weren't happy about what had been done that day, either.

Even the firing squad and their officer looked sheepish. I think they'd expected her to go all girly at the end…to cry, to beg for her life, to have to be dragged to the stake. Seeing her walk there under her own steam, her head held high and her eyes forward, and not even ask for a blindfold, had unnerved them. The soldiers shifted from foot to foot, murmuring, and their officer looked around uneasily.

Major Quisling Harvey gave orders, which the invaders' officers repeated in their incomprehensible language. We were grabbed and hustled along, back into the prison, and our sentences began. Robyn and I were separated from the boys, and hauled off to the women's wing of the regular prison. A lot of the people there were old lags from before the invasion; hey, the invaders had locked everybody else up, why would they let this lot go when they came "pre-locked-up," as it were?

I'd been worried about the convicts, but when they found out who Robyn and I were, and why we were there, they couldn't have been kinder. We were taken right under the wings of the "queen mamas," and nobody so much as looked at us cross-eyed. With their help, we settled in fairly quickly, and set out to wait this war out.

This war has to come to an end sometime, and I'm confident that Australia will win and we'll be free. Possibly the Australian or Kiwi military will storm this prison and liberate us even before that day.

And from now on out, if I hear someone say that some person was "game as Ned Kelly," I'll correct them.

From now out, till the day I die, the way I'll praise courage is to say that someone's "as game as Ellie Linton."

THE END


End file.
